I'm Listening To: "Sun Mountain" - Walter Becker & Donald Fagen

I didn't even know that this CD - "Sun Mountain" - even existed until very recently. That's hard to believe. I might be one of the world's most avid fans of Becker and Fagen, and I've followed their work from the days of their first Steely Dan release "Can't Buy a Thrill" in 1972. I've seen them twice - although, to be fair, neither of those two concerts was back in the "old days". I only got to see them in the 90s when they restarted their touring.

Each of the 17 tracks on this CD were recorded between 1968 and 1971.

"Sun Mountain", as I discovered, is full of demos - some more polished than others - of songs which both did and didn't eventually make their way onto Steely Dan albums. An example of the latter is "A Little With Sugar", a very engaging song which apparently was rejected...at least I'm not aware it was ever recorded by Steely Dan. I don't understand why.

So on this CD, you'll hear unreleased compositions as well as the fledgling versions of such classics as "Any Major Dude Will Tell You", "Any World That I'm Welcome To", "Barrytown", and "Parker's Band", among others.

Would I recommend this CD to anybody? Clearly, no. Really, it's for people like me. We're the died-in-the-wool fans of Becker and Fagen who are delighted to get a peek into their early genius. I'm very happy to have added this to my Steely Dan collection!

There's a review of this CD on Amazon, if you'd like to give it a read to get the opinion of another fan.

Janet

PS Can you imagine - I've actually married a man who can't stand Steely Dan? It must be true love, then, don't you think? ;-)